Re: Solaris ZFS on Linux

Wil Reichert
2006-08-03T02:20:37Z

On 8/2/06, Krzysztof Halasa <khc@pm.waw.pl> wrote:
> Kyle Moffett <mrmacman_g4@mac.com> writes:
>
> > IMHO the best alternative for a situation like that is a storage
> > controller with a battery-backed cache and a hunk of flash NVRAM for
> > when the power shuts off (just in case you run out of battery), as
> > well as a separate 1GB battery-backed PCI ramdisk for an external
> > journal device (likewise equipped with flash NVRAM). It doesn't take
> > much power at all to write a gig of stuff to a small flash chip
> > (Think about your digital camera which runs off a couple AA's), so
> > with a fair-sized on-board battery pack you could easily transfer its
> > data to NVRAM and still have power left to back up data in RAM for 12
> > hours or so. That way bootup is fast (no reading 1GB of data from
> > NVRAM) but there's no risk of data loss.
>
> Not sure - reading flash is fast, but writing is quite slow.
> A digital camera can consume a set of 2 or 4 2500 mAh AA cells
> for a fraction of 1 GB (of course, only a part of power goes
> to flash).

Seeks are fast, throughput is terrible, power is minimal:

http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/supertalent-flashide/index.x?pg=1

Wil